There is significant commercial interest in the fabrication of customized glass laminates with encapsulated digitally printed images having vibrant colors for use in architectural and automotive applications. Because project delivery times for current methods of producing limited quantities of glass laminates with customized graphics can be very long with accompanying high costs, there is a strong market need for methods that will allow rapid turnaround time at reasonable cost.
Introduction of digital methods, such as inkjet printing, is a natural fit for production of glass laminates with customized graphics. A major advantage of digital printing is the minimal setup times required to produce an image which reduces the cost and turnaround time of a short run as compared to traditional screen printing operations.
Inkjet printing is usually a wet-imaging and non-contact process where a vehicle or carrier fluid is energized to “jet” ink components from a printhead over a small distance onto a substrate. The vehicle is normally solvent or aqueous based and may contain dyes or pigments. Along with the chromophore, an inkjet ink formulation may contain humectants, surfactants, biocides and penetrants, among other ingredients. Inkjet technologies include continuous and drop-on-demand types. Drop-on-demand printing is the most common.
The use of digital printing provides a very quick means for preparing finished printed images, as digital image manipulation software such as Adobe's Photoshop® and/or Illustrator® in combination with the raster image processing (RIP) software can complete a full project from design to finished proof in a matter of hours as compared to days or longer for a traditional screen print process. The combination of digital printing and commercially available graphics software provides great opportunity for a wide range of customized aesthetics for use in laminated glass.
Therefore, there is a desire to improve glass laminates with customized graphics using the most modern inkjet printing technology available.